Sword Art Online I Came to Play
by Esvald
Summary: 2022 November 6th. The day the death game begun. Most of the players were devastated. They wanted to go home, they didn't want to die. Not everyone. This is the story of a player named Esvald, who was overjoyed by the thought of locked in the game. Will he survive until the end?


Boring. My life can be perfectly explained with this one simple word. My name is Esvald and I am 16 years old. I've been using this name for a long time since I didn't want to use the original. It was laughably bad. My father probably came up with it while he was drunk. Well that wasn't a rare thing as far as he's concerned. He almost always drunk. If not, he's down in the pub and working on it. Or up in the flat bothering me and my brother. I don't know how long I'll last. We can't really live here. Our only option is to lock ourselves and play video games. In the world of video games at least I feel like I'm something. Something other than worthless trash that doesn't good for anything.

Oh and right, I mentioned my brother. He's only ten. I protect him in any way I'm able.

Both of us are attending school. We are not the best students. We think school is boring. We only want to get home and play. But even that becomes boring after some time.

Like today. It's 2022. End of September. There are no new games. We've beaten all the old ones. Not even once, but multiple times. There is nothing to do. We can smell the alcohol in the air and wonder when the it's all gonna get better. I can check my e-mails though, but nothing new I'm sure of it, aside from the usual spam.

Unread mails: 1 from G. Grosulak

Grosulak? Grosulak... It's been a year I didn't hear this name. My girlfriend was called Grosulak... but she died. I didn't really managed to get over her. Not sure if I ever will. Her dad never accepted me, being only a long-distance relationship. It was pretty unexpected that he wrote me a letter after a year. I opened it and read it quickly. It wasn't long.

"My daughter wanted these to be yours. It was one of her last wishes. I'll have it delivered."

G.G."

I wonder what are the "things" he talked about? I had no clue about it whatsoever. Well if Grosulak sent it, I'm gonna figure it out soon. When I last talked with my girlfriend, she told me she's gonna surprise me with something. Maybe this is it.

The parcel arrived a week later. Coming back from from school, a big box was waiting for me on my bed. My brother told me he took it, because no one else was home. I examined the box. Something big must have been inside. I opened it.

The first thing that landed on my bed was a big very dark blue - almost black - helmet. It was surprisingly heavy; although I'm pretty weak when it comes to physical strength. It had a weight for me. I placed it to my desk, in front of my monitor. The helmet didn't cover the whole face like the ones I knew from sci-fi movies; it didn't cover the most of the face. Above the eyepiece I saw something written on it: NVG. Below that, even smaller words: NERVEGEAR. On the sides of the helmet I saw other acronyms with lamps maybe? They were dark at the moment.

"What is it?"

My brother asked, who was watching me from the room entrance.

"No idea. Some kind of helmet. I don't know if it's good for anything."

"Try it on!"

He suggested, and I didn't think it was dangerous, so I put it on my head, which became very heavy after that.

"Nothing."

"Maybe if you'd plug it in..."

He then raised his hand with cables came out from the back of the helmet.

"Good idea"

I agreed and put the cables into a free socket.

At this moment, it felt like the helmet in my head became alive. A little blank screen appeared in my view. I also heard a voice from the helmet, but I didn't know what it was saying, since it wasn't in Hungarian or English.

"There is a letter here"

My brother shouted to me.

"No need for shouting, I can hear pretty well"

After removing the helmet, I read the letter. It was longer, and explained what to do with the helmet to make it English. There were some spare parts. It was obvious those weren't part of the helmet. So someone took the helmet, and translated everything in it to English from that foreign language, that was Chinese, Japanese, Korean or something like that.

Working on this took a long time, and eventually evening came.

I equipped the helmet again. Now I understood the voice. It wanted me to touch various parts of my body (like all of them, literally), so the helmet could gain data. I had no idea what's use of that kind of data, but I thought, well OK, why not? After the scan finished, nothing happened.

"And now?"

I was confused, what was that whole thing? I laid down to my bed (well I call it a bed, but in reality it was a really worn mattress), because my head started to feel really heavy.

"Is this thing good for anything after all?"

I was kinda frustrated, while I poked around the screen in front of me. After a certain press, I realized why nothing is happening. NO GAME FOUND.

So it must be some kind of old-fashioned console. The touchscreen in front of me should present the game. I looked into the box again. Maybe a game came with the helmet? Well there was one.

"Sword Art Online"

A big floating castle was on the cover. Turning it backside, the usual inspiring text: Be Aincrad's next(maybe that's the castle's name?) hero, fight with various powerful enemies, trade, create, meet other players, and explore this world with all of it's beauty! Once you log in, you'll never want to log out! What are you waiting for? Just say Link Start, and you'll be there. Your journey starts now!

"Alright, let"s try it."

There is nothing else to do really, and this looks interesting enough.

Besides, I have very good memories and experiences with medieval themed RPG games.

"Link Start!"

What I was excepting that a swordsman like figure would appear on the screen in 8 bit. Instead of this, my room disappeared with the screen and the helmet, and I was traveling in whiteness, surrounded with other colors. Before I could aspect anything, colorful menus came and go informing me about the language and that the helmet functions are OK. After that, darkness.

"What is it?"

I asked the nothingness.

"Welcome aspiring Warrior of Aincrad. The world is not ready yet. Please come back at November 6th, 2022, 1:00 pm. Do you want to log out now?"

A girls voice explained the situation.

"Yes."

There was no point standing in the darkness.

After a few seconds my room returned, and with it my worried brother.

"You didn't answer. Why not? What happened?"

He sounded really worried. I told him about my strange experience. His mood drastically changed into a joyful laughter.

"So you're really actually IN the game! Now if something, that's a video game!"

I couldn't believe it. It made sense, but it were unbelievable. Actually inside of a video game?

"I looked this up on the Internet"

He explained that the NerveGear is a very new platform, with Full Dive technology. It makes the players feels like they are actually in the game. There is only one game for it - the one I tried logged in. Only ten thousand copies were made.

One of them is mine. Actually mine. A random nobody from a backwater country. I never felt that much joy in my life, when I read the beta tester's impressions on the game. I couldn't wait for the day to come.

The day to see the world of Aincrad with my own eyes.


End file.
